It seems to me that I am always criticizing our prison system. But yesterday I had a very positive experience in a local pre-trial center.

I had the privilege of taking a famous writer to this facility. As you probably know, pretrial facilities separate people, so that those who were in a crime together cannot work on their stories. As a result there are many separate sections in pretrial, and they can’t be mixed.

The famous writer did not object to speaking to only two of the six or so units. She was her usual engaging, personal self. Nothing was a problem for her, having her picture taken with the men, moving through all the heavy metal doors, and repeating her talk three times, twice to the men and once to the staff.

Everyone was in a good mood. Was it her charm? Was it the fact of having a NYTimes best seller visit them? Was it that I only saw a small segment of the staff and of the inmates?

Whatever, the morning was filled with laughter and good cheer. There are staff who are human beings and inmates who know how to get along with staff.

An opinion from a former inmate of the federal prison system in the Fraser Valley.

What do we do?

I think something needs to be said about Raymond Caissie. As I’m sure everyone knows he is the man charged for murdering a young girl recently and is now the poster boy for why criminals shouldn’t be released from prison. I’m not trying to defend him; I only seek to point out that it is not for the press to convict him in the media already. If I’m not mistaken that is the job of the courts. I’m sure there will be some readers out there who may not agree with my opinion, but emotion needs to be set aside, so that the situation can be analyzed objectively.

We are talking about a man who served every day of his 22 year sentence and that to me represents a failure on the part of the system to prepare this man for his eventual reintegration. I heard that at one of his hearings he said that he was afraid of what he might do when released. This was a cry for help that went unanswered because the system as it is structured is not capable of dealing with certain types of offenders. Sure the prison staff will say that programs were offered and that there is no responsibility on their part. They are partially correct, inadequate programming was offered but they bear some responsibility just as the rest of us do. How is it our responsibility you might ask? Our elected government – that’s right I said elected – chooses to go with harsher sentences as a deterrent rather than trying a new direction. Caissie’s sentence was 22 years, a sentence he got as a young man, and it didn’t have any deterrent effect.

What could have been done differently? I don’t know anything about what was done to try and rehabilitate this man, the public isn’t privy to that information. If I had to guess by the nature of his previous offences, I would say that he served all his time in Mountain Institution which among inmates is known for housing a large population of sex offenders. Now I don’t know if he did programming or not during his time, but clearly there needed to be more done in the case of this man.

Through all his time in prison and 8 parole hearings, no progress was made. This is a man who had an eventual release date. I know that from public opinion there are those who would call for the suspension of civil rights for those convicted of violent crimes, but I’m here to say that is a very slippery slope. We as a society decide that we must arbitrarily keep some people locked up indefinitely despite the fact that a sentencing judge did not see it that way. Where does it end? In this case a tragedy occurred, and a young girl died. We need to seek solutions not knee-jerk reactions if we are to prevent future tragedies. Let’s call on the government for meaningful change and let’s call on the Correctional Service to lead the way towards creating a system that recognizes the need to change the way it does business. As a society we need to be involved in changing things, and not just count on the people that we have elected. Let us remember that they work for us.

In my area this week, a man who killed a young girl, was arrested. Newspapers reported that he’d just gotten out of prison after serving his full sentence of 22 years. His preliminary offense was one of sexual offense.

The media made much of the fact that the man had appeared many times before the parole board and had not reformed himself. It seemed that the man was a hopeless criminal.

Yes, maybe he is. However, I began to wonder what the man did in prison for 22 years. Did the staff not have meetings about this man? Were experts consulted? Were new methods tried? I know that some men are indeed unredeemable, but I’ve also seen how little effort prison staff put into helping men get over their crimes. They figure their job is to keep them locked up, not to help them.

Prison time should mean removal from society for a period of time, during which prison staff work to help the man change. Yes, the prison staff needs more training in the human sciences. Yes, tests should be given to applicants for prison jobs to discover their motivation. What motivates them — punishment or helping?

The theory is that prison will teach a man (or woman) how to live in society. It doesn’t work. It’s the farthest thing from what actually happens.

The man gets up at a certain time, marches to the mess hall, and sits with the same three fellows he’s sat with for years. Never does a staff member ask if he could join them. This is an Us and Them world.

The day goes on, the man can only move from one place to another at specified times. He used to have freedom of movement during a good portion of the day, but no more. The staff discovered that it’s easier on them if they put in a military type regime.

This is training to live on the outside?

Then there are programs to take, Cog Skills, Anger Management etc. It doesn’t matter so much whether a man needs a program, the important thing is to keep the classes full. The man has no say in what programs he would like to take. This, of course, guarantees that poor teachers can retain their jobs.

Programs are made conditions of parole. I had a learning experience in this area. I had worked with an inmate for seven years. I knew him thoroughly – he was ready for freedom or at least for a halfway house. I was asked to be interviewed about this man and I agreed. The interviewer was a private individual who prepared reports on inmates. He and I had good conversations, but as we talked, I began to realize that no matter what I said this man was going to report that the inmate wasn’t ready yet. I further suspected that this is what the man always said – this is why the prison system kept him around – he kept filling the prisons, guaranteeing further work for the staff.

“There should be no jails. They do not accomplish what they pretend to accomplish. If you would wipe them out and there would be no more criminals than now. They are a blot upon any civilization.”

Another example of the prison system’s inability to stand up for what is right involves sterile needles used for tattoos.

Prisoners use all manner of tools to do tattoos, none of them sterile. The result of this was infection with hepatitis and/or other diseases. The prison staff knew that in the long run sterile needles would lead to big savings of money and lives. So they allowed the men to set up sort of a tattoo parlor in the basement of Matsqui prison. The needles used were sterile and nobody got sick.

Someone in the community got the word that those convicts were getting free tattoos in the basement of Matsqui prison.

As they always seem to do, the prison staff caved in. The tattoo parlor was closed. Apparently it didn’t matter if men got Hepatitis A, B, or C. What was important was the image of the prison.